ADVANTAGES OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 3. A cordial reception of the grace of reconciliation. 39 Eph. ii. 18. 2 Cor. i. 5. Gal. vi. 14; and v. 22. 1 Peter, i. 8. Let us adore the ineffable goodness of God-secure the inestimable benefits of redemption, and worthily appreciate the privileges of the gospel. ADVANTAGES OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. "IT IS GOOD FOR ME TO DRAW NEAR TO GOD."- Psalm lxxiii. 28. MARVELLOUS are the evidences of Divine condescension. Worms of the dust are permitted to approach the throne of the Divine Majesty (Isa. lvii. 15. James, iv. 8.) Communion with God is, in every point of view, an exercise of unquestionable importance. It was the grand original design of man's intellectual and moral qualifications; it is the great end of Christ's mediation; and the most elevating and ennobling exercise of which the most exalted of created intelligences is capable. Let our attention, therefore, be directed to its devotional character, and its beneficial influence. Consider I. ITS DEVOTIONAL CHARACTER. God is not far from every one of us. His presence fills immensity. Yet the wicked are morally far from God; but the righteous draw nigh to him, which implies— 1. Detachment from sin and secular engagements. 2. Solicitous application to the holy oracle. 3. Devout attendance at the altar : Closet exercises-family devotions-service of the sanctuary-meditation—prayer. 4. Implicit confidence and supreme delight in the Most High. Levit. x. 1-3. Psalm v. 7. Eccl. v. 1, 2. John, iv. 20-24. Deut. iv. 29. 1 Chron. xvi. 11. II. ITS BENEFICIAL INFLUence. "It is good for me." 1. This exercise has a tendency to correct erroneous and dangerous sentiments, (ver. 2, 13, 14.) 2. It promotes a salutary acquaintance with "the Father of lights." 3. It induces resignation to the infallible arrangements of Divine Providence. 4. It elevates the mind to the realities of the eternal state. 5. It assimilates our character to the purity of the divine image. 40 ADVANTAGES OF COMMUNION WITH GOD. 6. It prepares man for glorious and uninterrupted intercourse with the Supreme. Ps. xxxiv. 10, 15; 1. 15. 2 Chron. xiv. 10-12. Ps. 18, 19. Gen. xxxii. 24, &c. Dan. vi. 10, 11. And is it the case, as David forcibly expresses it, that "the wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God?" Is it true, that "God is not in all his thoughts ?"-What flagrant impiety!-What daring presumption !-What base ingratitude !-Are any of you in this alarming condition? If so, repent, I beseech you, of this your wickedness. Many of hope, are following hard after God. Do you cry, "O that I knew where I might find him? Be assured, "where two or three are gathered together in his name, there he is in the midst of them." His words are, (Exod. xx. 24,) "I WILL COME UNTO THEE, AND I WILL BLESS THEE. you, I SPIRITUALITY OF MIND. "TO BE SPIRITUALLY MINDED IS LIFE AND PEACE."-Rom. viii. 6. CHRISTIANITY produces, by its salutary influences, a radical change in man. Those influences are emphatically spiritual; and, in their application to the soul, impart spirituality of affection. Observe the characteristics which distinguish spirituality of mind, and its salutary results. Examine I. ITS CHARACTERISTICS. The original word signifies to set one's affection on an object, and to use great pains to obtain it, (Col. iii. 2.) Spirituality of mind is distinguished 1. By a deep conviction of the reality and supreme importance of divine things. 2. By an intense desire for spiritual enjoyment. 3. By submission to the Holy Spirit's operation and govern ment. 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15. Ps. xxvii. 4. Acts, xvi. 30. Phil. iii. 8-14. Acts, xi. 24. Rom. viii. 9. II. ITS SALUTARY RESULTS. "Life and peace." Its consequences are both vital and tranquillizing. 1. Vitality. Leading to the establishment of a vital union to Christ, through faith; the possession of vital principles, through the indwelling of the Spirit of God; the earnest of that perpetuity of divine life, in which spirituality of mind is destined to issue. SPIRITUALITY OF MIND. 41 2. Serenity. ... "To be spiritually minded is peace." Secures the divine favour and friendship-conduces to habitual serenity, amidst the turmoil, and affliction, and vicissitude of the probationary state-and terminates in the ineffable peace, and uninterrupted harmony of heaven. John, xv. 5, 6; Gal. ii. 20; 2 Cor. vi. 16; Rom. v. Isai. xxxii. 17; Job, iii. 17. 1 ; Away from our souls, ye carnal propensities, ye impure affections, ye powers of darkness! Let us, my friends, direct our intensest solicitude and utmost energy to the paramount realities of the Spirit and of heaven; regard with contempt the vanities of earth; and let our profession and deportment testify that "we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen," which are spiritual-permanent-Divine. CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. SUPERIORITY OF DIVINE REVELATION.-The theology of nature sheds powerful light on the being of a God; and, even from its unaided demonstrations, we can reach a considerable degree of probability, both for his moral and natural attributes. But when it undertakes the question between God and man, this is what it finds to be impracticable. It is here where the main helplessness of nature lies. It is baffled in all its attempts to decipher the state and the prospects of man, viewed in the relation of an offending subject to an offended sovereign. In a word, its chief obscurity, and which it is wholly unable to disperse, is that which rests on the hopes and the destiny of our species. There is in it enough of manifestation to awaken the fears of guilt, but not enough again to appease them. It emits, and audibly emits, a note of terror; but in vain do we listen for one authentic word of comfort from any of its oracles. It is able to see the danger, but not the deliverance. It can excite the forebodings of the human spirit, but cannot quell them knowing just enough to stir the perplexity, but not enough to set the perplexity at rest. It can state the difficulty, but cannot unriddle the difficulty-having just as much knowledge as to enunciate the problem, but not so much as might lead to the solution of the problem. There must be a measure of light, we do allow ; but, like the lurid gleam of a volcano, it is not a light which guides, but which bewilders and terrifies. It prompts the question, but cannot frame or furnish the reply. Natural theology may see as much as shall draw forth the anxious interrogation, "What shall I do to be saved?" The answer to this comes from a higher theology.Dr. Chalmers. 42 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. THE IMPORTANCE OF JUSTIFICATION.-How clear and urgent is the duty of seeking a personal and experimental enjoyment of justifying grace. This is no vain or unimportant thing; "it is your life;" it affects your highest interests, your everlasting welfare. "There is none," naturally or legally, "righteous, no, not one." If not justified by faith, you are yet under the awful curse of a violated law of God. "He that believeth not is condemned already." If you persist in the rejection or neglect of offered pardon, there is no deliverance from the guilt of such obstinate unbelief, either in this world, or in that which is to come. The only release from wrath which God, in his mercy, hath provided, or ever will provide, you refuse to accept; and of course that wrath, while you persevere in this refusal, "abideth on you." And who knoweth the power of his wrath? Compared with it, the combined wrath of all the angels in heaven, of all the men upon earth, and of all the devils in hell, would be as nothing. Yet, till you are justified, this wrath abideth on you by day and by night; and you not only remain liable to the curse entailed on unpardoned sin by the holy law, but you are incurring the additional punishment of " cifying the Son of God afresh."-Dr. Jabez Bunting. cru THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER.-Directed by the light of faith, the eye of the true Christian is intensely fixed on the great sphere of eternity. He hears the solemn voice of his religion, which tells him, that in man there are two distinct beings, the one material and perishable, the other spiritual and immortal. He knows and contemplates the rapid advance of that futurity, which is not measured by the succession of days and nights, or the revolution of years and ages. Before these profound and magnificent impressions all worldly glory fades. No interests can possess or transport his heart, but those to which he is invited from above. No, not a desire in his breast, not a moment in his life; no evil in his apprehension, or happiness in his conception, that refers not to eternity; he is all immensity of views and projects: and hence that true nobility of spirit, that calm, majestic indifference which looks down on the visionary enterprises of man, sees them, unstable and fleeting as the waves of a torrent, pressed and precipitated by those that pursue, and scarce tell you where they are, when you behold them no more: hence likewise that equality of soul, which is troubled at no reverse or vicissitude of life, which knows not those tormenting successions, those rapid alternations of pleasure and pain, so frequent in the breast of worldlings: to be elevated by the slightest success, depressed by the slightest reverse, intoxicated at a puff of praise, inconsolable at the least appearance of contempt, reanimated at a gleam of respect, tortured by an air of coolness and indifference: unbounded in all wishes, and disgusted after all possession, is a spectacle of human misery that would enhance the peace of a true Christian, did all the influence of a divine religion not infuse into his heart as much pity for his mistaken brethren, as it does superior dignity and elevation into his sentiments.-Rev. W. B. Kirwan. THE JUDGMENT DAY.-The solemnities of that day when the heavens and the earth shall pass away, will be awfully tremendous ! While all nature is convulsed, his throne shall be set up, and all nations shall be gathered before him. I shall be there! you will be there! And then the Judge shall speak with a voice which shall cause the earth and sea to deliver up their dead. And then he shall say to those on his left hand, "Depart! depart! depart from me, ye accursed!" O for a sentence like this, to come from the lips of a bleeding, dying Saviour; from those very lips which said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." From those very lips which so often invited and encouraged sinners. Depart, ye cursed! I have borne with you long enough! I have kept back the stroke of vengeance long enough! I have interceded for you long enough! Depart from me for ever! Then shall the wrath of the Lamb gather in deep blackness over the heads of the miserable, and sink them down where hope never comes, and where the worm never dies.-Rev. T. Lessey. BIBLICAL NOTES. VARIATION OF TEMPERATURE IN THE EAST.-" Therefore thus saith the LORD of Jehoiakim king of Judah; He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David: and his dead body shall be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night to the frost.”—Jer. xxxvi. 30. Sir J. Chardin (as cited by Harmer) observes, "In the Lower Asia, in particular, the day is always hot; and as soon as the sun is fifteen degrees above the horizon, no cold is felt, in the depth of winter itself. On the contrary, in the height of summer the nights are as cold as at Paris in the month of March. It is for this reason that in Persia and Turkey they always make use of furred habits in the country, such only being sufficient to resist the cold of the nights. I have travelled in Arabia, and in Mesopotamia, (the theatre of the adventures of Jacob,) both in winter and in summer, and have found the truth of what the patriarch said, 'That he was scorched with the heat in the day, and stiffened with cold in the night.' (Gen. xxxi. 40.) This contrariety in the qualities of the air in twenty-four hours is extremely great in some places, and not conceivable by those that have not seen it; one would imagine that they had passed in a moment from the violent heats of summer to the depth of winter. Thus it hath pleased God to temper the heat of the sun by the coldness of the night, without which the greatest part of the East would be barren, and a desert." RECUMBENT ATTITUDE AT TABLE.- "And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him, weeping," &c.-Luke, vii. 37, 38. In |